Yes, you understood already that Axi changed from a teenager into a young adult.

Suddenly, she did not feel like staying at the cemetery. She decided to go home.

Miriam had been nervous all day and she had been worrying about Axi not showing up after school.
Often she had gone outside to see if the girl was already near until the moment that she knew that Axi would be working.

The woman tried to read a book but she couldn‘t concentrate. She was sleepy but she could not afford to go to bed; not until the girl would come home.
The door opened and… there she was… Axi had changed into a young adult.

Axi did not give her the opportunity to say anything. She just said: “Out! Go and find another snotty teen!“

Then Miriam understood that the girl had overheard her conversation with the man at the park.

Miriam was very sleepy but couldn‘t stay any longer. She packed her belongings and she left some papers on the table. She said: “These are official papers that you might need; I‘m sorry that things turned out this way and I tell you on the forehand that I will be taken half of the money of this household. I was told that I could do so. Good-bye.“

Axi sat down at the table. She didn‘t feel like reading the official papers right now. Miriam was told that she could take half of the money? That was the money that she had earned working at the cemetery!
Now she understood why she had allowed her to work…

She was a bit confused. Her, long awaited, freedom ahead of her looked like an enormous mountain. She couldn‘t focus on one special thought. Nobody would even tell her anymore what to do. She did not have to go to school anymore. She could go out even at night.

After a while she decided to consider her freedom as a cake. You cannot eat it all at once, so she would start enjoying her freedom ‘slice by slice‘.

When her heartbeat was normal again, she watched TV without even noticing what it was all about and then she went to bed. She didn‘t want to use the big bed until she would have other sheets.
Even in her dreams she saw that ‘big freedom cake‘.

When she woke up, she felt different. She did not have to go to school and she would have 2 days off from her work. She prepared herself a breakfast.

She decided to change the distribution of her furniture. Selling the bed, her bedroom could be used as living room. Now the kitchen was only used for cooking and eating.

She had some nice changes made and bought a few things for her household. After that she felt good and sat down at the kitchen table to drink something and thoughtlessly she opened the official papers that still were on the table.

I might as well have a quick look at them and then I will put them in a safe place.
Amongst the papers she found her birth certificate and she read that her real name was Cynthia. That name was not familiar to her but it was a nice name and she thought that it was a good start; a new name for a new life.

She had made up her mind already. She definitely would continue with her job at the cemetery, not only because it was paid well but because she liked the work. As it only took a few hours in the afternoon, she could work as an assistant in the household. That was paid by the hours as well and she was sure that she could earn quite a lot of money with the 2 jobs.
She changed into something more comfortable.

She registered as a professional assistant so if somebody was interested, they could contact her directly and she would be able to combine the jobs very well.

That evening she wanted to go out. First of all she visited the museum and after that she went to the swimming pool, not to swim but just to look around.

It was a nice place to come back during the day to have a swim.

Further on she sat on a bench in the park and read a book. She surely felt happy with her freedom.
That night she would sleep in the big bed in the renewed bedroom.

On Thursday she went to the pool to have a swim but she felt disappointed that there were more people. Axi, oh excuse me… Cynthia is a person of the solitary kind so she felt better without many people around.

Later that day she went to the theater and enjoyed the movie.

She commented it with another young man who had seen it.

After having said good-bye she walked to the Old Man‘s Pier to have a stroll on the beach.

She was there for hours and wondered how it would be on the Lighthouse Island. Perhaps she could swim to explore it but, most probably, that would be a lot of swimming. It looked so near, but it‘s hard to know exactly how long it would take to arrive there.

She decided to get more skilled at swimming but then certainly she would try to reach the island. That‘s what she promised herself. She would train every day for at least one hour.

To be continued…